Meet The Teen Tycoon Of Silicon Valley

“Let’s create, combat and conquer!” says Anshul Samar, the youngest CEO in Silicon Valley.

At 13, Anshul is the founder of Elementeo, a games company in California. He fulfilled his dream of starting his own business after receiving a $500 (Dh1,800) award from the California Association for the Gifted.

In an e-mail exchange with XPRESS, Anshul said: “I always wanted to show the world that kids can start a business and can have fun at the same time.

“The whole idea of Elementeo was to combine education with fun, or rather fun with education,” said Anshul, the son of an Indian immigrant settled in the US.

When asked how he felt being labelled the youngest CEO in Silicon Valley, Anshul said: “I’m not sure as to what is the big deal. I was doing it for fun and now I made it into a business.”

Elementeo is a chemistry card game that consists of two decks of 66 cards each with two participants fighting each other in a midst of an epic chemical battle constantly trying to reduce their opponent’s IQ to zero.

Anshul is working on the price and overseas shipping of the card game. He said: “Elementeo is not yet shipping and the final price is not yet done. But we’re thinking that it would be in the range of $20-$25, based upon the number of initial orders.”

Apart from Anshul the company has three more members: William Huang and Daniel Tan, both 7th graders, and Anshul’s sister Shailee, a 5th grader, all from Cupertino, California. He is working on expanding his team to “get people who are more experienced about money matters and game distribution”.

Like other children, Anshul’s hobbies include basketball, writing poetry/short stories, playing the electric guitar, eating and sleeping. He also practises breathing exercises and meditation – not to forget playing Elementeo.

The game’s afoot

You command an army of chemical elements, compounds and catalysts — represented within a 66-card deck. Your opponent has his own deck with the same number of cards. Your goal is to battle your competitor and reduce his IQ down to zero. Pit your oxygen card against your opponent’s iron card, for example, and you learn that you create rust. Score one for oxygen. Kind of like rock-paper-scissors.